Tips for starting Witch Hunters

Having played Skaven, and Marienburgers for years, I've decided to start up with Witch Hunters...but I don't really know their play style, and am not sure how to take advantage of their strengths vs weaknesses.

The Witch Hunters have a pretty balanced playstyle. The henchmen and the Warrior Priest are geared towards close combat, while the Witch Hunters themselves are more suited to shooting, since they lack strength skills. They can be effective both as snipers with crossbows or short range shooters with pistols (crossbow pistols in particular). The Captain has all 5 skill tables so can go melee or shooting; shooting seems to be the preference for most. Since all the heroes have Academic, they can be good money makers as well.

Warhounds are a great value in the start, so I always recommend getting a few. Flagellants are the hard hitters and you'll want to max out in them at some point. Long term, some people prefer zealots over warhounds since they gain xp and aren't limited as animals are, though personally I don't take zealots at all. Zealots can become better fighters with the right advances, but they can't get the speed of hounds, which I have found valuable. You may end up preferring one or the other, but always max out your flagellants when you can afford it.

The main downside is the 12 max warband size, though hired swords, the Halfling scout, and Halfling cookbook help mitigate that.

I've started playing Witch Hunters recently and I think I'm starting to get the hang of them.

My group has Carnival of Chaos, Lizardmen, Dark Elves and me. In the beginning I was struggling (I'm sure people can understand why that is, Lustria warbands!) and I even restarted my band because I lost too many (ended up in a close combat fight with CoC player - needless to say he slaughtered my heroes) but I think I've got to a good point now. 3 of my 4 witch hunters have quick shot, my flagellant group has WS4 and 2 attacks and I have halfling scout + cookbook for 14 models (5 heroes 5 flagellants 4 dogs).

I started with two zealots with bows and 3 warhounds. The zealots have never hit a thing, but do make good missile targets and the dogs are throw aways for voluntary rout purposes.I took wyrdstone hunter on the first couple of with hunters to maximise income, and bought braces of pistols for the captain and 2 WH.The last WH has had a xbow from the start and is the most reliable killer.

Now i have reached the twelve model limit, i have hired the Tilean Marksman and Dwarf Troll Slayer as they are cheap to hire and maintain and add to the general all round capabilities of the warband.

A Flagellant LGT has completed the heroes.The most useless thing i have found is the warrior Priest, who always seems to get high diff prayers that he never actually gets off.

Pistols are a must have, but i use the captain and two WH as close combat troops.

Good luck with them, i struggled to start with, but now things have started to get much better, i have 80gc now and don't now what to spend it on though.